


To catch you before the fall

by Nalou_Misc (Nalou)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Depression, F/M, Ninth is not a happy bunny, Pre-Relationship, Rose Tyler is brave, Suicidal Thoughts, Wood carving, suicidal prevention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22269562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nalou/pseuds/Nalou_Misc
Summary: Are you okay?The words glare at him, messy and jittery andcarved in the wood.He’s torn between being offended for his desk and puzzled by the idea of someone degrading school property to ask him how he feels instead of, you know. Asking him.This internal debate could have lasted for hours if the bell hadn’t rung. Students fill his auditorium, chatting loudly and messing around as they always do.Discreetly, his gaze scans the room. There’s no way anyone of them could have seen through his smile and overall jovial attitude. He’s absolutely sure of it.There’s no way anyone of them could have seen the void eating him alive.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74





	To catch you before the fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaelyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaelyan/gifts).
  * Translation into Français available: [Te rattraper avant la chute](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22372588) by [Kaelyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaelyan/pseuds/Kaelyan)



_ Are you okay? _

The words glare at him, messy and jittery and  _ carved in the wood _ .

He’s torn between being offended for his desk and puzzled by the idea of someone degrading school property to ask him how he feels instead of, you know. Asking him.

This internal debate could have lasted for hours if the bell hadn’t rung. Students fill his auditorium, chatting loudly and messing around as they always do.

Discreetly, his gaze scans the room. There’s no way anyone of them could have seen through his smile and overall jovial attitude. He’s absolutely sure of it.

There’s no way anyone of them could have seen the void eating him alive.

.

She sees him, every night, when she cleans the hallways and he’s just sitting at his desk, head in his hands, shoulders trembling. She never dares bothering him even though she’s supposed to clean his classroom too. She knows who he is, even if she doesn’t follow his class. She sees him wild and dynamic and so expressive during the day, but an empty shell when he thinks he’s alone. And that sight pains her so deeply that she sometimes seems to lose any capacity to breathe.

So one night, when she’s sure he has left for the day, carrying his tired body wherever he calls home, she sneaks in his classroom, eyes barely stroking the complex formulae on the chalkboard. Her gaze scans his desk, empty of any paper she could use, and, wearing the cleaning uniform, she doesn’t have anything on her either. Except for the small tool she uses to scrap gums out of the underside of chairs and desks. Not overthinking what she’s doing, she starts to carve the question she dies to ask him.

\---

_ No _ .

She’s torn between smiling because the professor has dared to answer her in the same manner despite being… well, a professor, and crying because of the two simple letters he gave her. 

N.O. Even the ending dot is present, in all its finality.

The more she thinks of it, the more she feels helpless. Those are signs she painfully recognises. She needs to do something, anything. How is she supposed to help someone she doesn’t have any contact with, someone she doesn’t know much about?

Her heart is beating fast, and the noise outside of his classroom is getting closer, so she’s gonna have to make a decision fast, and-

\---

_ Why? _

How? How did this new word appear, when he left his room only for a few minutes, going to the copy room and then back?

There’s a noise in the corridor, so he runs to his door, opening it in a flash, only to be met by the utter emptiness. No living soul in the vicinity. Did he dream it? He’s rather sure he didn’t - there’s someone here, someone spying on him, someone wanting to know.

But to know what? To know the depths of his sorrows, of his emptiness? To know the pain that prevents him from getting up in the morning, crushing his heart and stealing his breath after a night of restless sleep?

Somehow, to know that someone dares to see behind the facade scares him more than it reassures him. It’s not a part of his plan. Definitely not. How is he supposed to end his pain, when someone’s breathing over his shoulder?

Somehow, it tips his carefully thought intention way too close to the edge of his mental cliff, threatening to rush it down, leaving him naked, raw, without a goal. He doesn’t want to lose his will to die.

.

She hears him rushing out of his classroom, and she doesn’t know why, but she follows, dropping broom and mop and stupid plastic gloves on her way over.

He doesn’t turn when they end up in the hall, doesn’t slow down, and she’s breathless, her stride way smaller than his, but she can’t let him disappear-

“Professor!” She calls, nearly shouts, her lungs painfully reminding her of their presence.

She runs a few more steps in his direction before noticing that he  _ does _ have stopped running away. Oh so slowly, he turns to her, and his deep blue eyes reflect the pain and panic he must feel, being cornered like that. She would have lost her breath on the spot if she weren’t already panting from the rush. But as she comes closer, any damn word she wants to tell him just disappear, and she just stares at him, through him.

After what feels like an endless silence, he raises an eyebrow.

“Yes?” he asks. “What do you want, miss? I was heading home, it’s late.”

“I…” she starts. Her brain skids over thoughts, doesn’t know what to say until her mouth takes control. “I was actually wondering if… If you could explain something to me?”

The look on his face is so dubious, she knows he’s scanning through his classes to know if she’s part of any. So she doesn’t let him finish his mental search.

“Well, you know, about the…” She moves her weight on her right leg, crams her hands in her jeans’ pockets as she scrambles for any subject he might be teaching. “Pluto… stuff?”

She winces, hoping he would catch the bait.

And he does, gosh she’s so relieved her knees start wobbling as he starts talking about planetaries and stars and atmospheres, everything so alien to her, but she makes sure to nod every now and then, to make small thoughtful noises, and mostly to retain at least something.

.

The girl thanks him profusely fifteen minutes later, when he has finished summarizing his introduction class to astrophysics, and he knows she was just playing along. This lesson is over for a month now, and he’s certain he has never seen her anywhere near his room. He would have known. But she seems so alive, so interested even if it’s clear she didn’t understand anything, her eyes shining and her teeth worrying her bottom lip as she tried to catch everything.

“What’s your name?” he asks anyway.

“Rose,” she answers, a beautiful, shining smile tugging slowly at the corners of her mouth. “Rose Tyler.”

And there’s something in this smile, something that sets sparks of electricity through his fingertips and lights a feeble flame deep down his bottomless soul. She’s so lively, and he doesn’t know why but it does something to him, crumbling his resolve and making him think that maybe, just maybe, he could see through another day.

It’s only when she lets a small laugh out that he notices that he had mimicked her, a small smile spreading his lips fondly. It drops at the same time as his gaze, thoughts wondering when he last smiled, when he last felt just a bit lighter, just a bit brighter.

“Would you…” she starts again.

He looks back at her, eyes questioning, and he sees her blush, pink rushing on her cheeks and spreading all over her face, with a single brushstroke. He’s not surprised to find it endearing, he’s surprised to feel anything at all.

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to… Grab coffee? Or Tea, or whatever it is that you fancy?” She asks, showing the other exit with her thumb over her shoulder. “I know a place that stays open all night. Practical to study, not crowded. But…” she hesitates, looking suddenly shy, all of her boisterous composure gone, “only if you’d like to, of course.”

“I’d like to,” he says, because, somehow, he can’t stand to see her so hesitant. “Besides, I’m not finished about Pluto,” he lies.

So they end up crammed face to face, seating in a small booth in a small café, two hot drinks seated between them. She finally spits the truth out when he starts rambling about extremely complicated theoretical physics, telling him that she’s not a scientist at all, that she’s following an English course at the university and that she works every night cleaning classrooms to pay for tuition. She struggles to mix work and homework, and she’s fallen behind on her courses, but the fierceness in her eyes burns through his soul and fills a few of its wounds. She’s fighting for it, fighting to survive, to live, to get a degree. She has her own pains and her own wounds and she’s just as alone as he is, her loneliness kept at bay by her weekly phone call to her mother. She’s just like him and his perfect opposite. She has goals and shows him that he can have some of his own, too. Small, attainable ones.

“I could help you if you’d like,” he tells her after another sip of his scalding tea.

“I don’t want to be a bother,” she answers immediately.

“I wouldn’t be offering if I thought so,” he retaliates. “See this as a mutually beneficial transaction. I can help you get better marks in pretty much any field, and you can help me out of my… boredom.”

It seems to work, as her face lights up with joy. “Only if you promise to not see me as one of your students, which I technically am not, and that we could meet up here or anywhere else as long as it’s not at Uni. I need fresh air to get my head to work once again.”

“I’m sure your head works perfectly fine,” he can’t stop but observe. “You just have to trust yourself a bit more.”

It’s so easy to say the words he desperately craves to hear himself when he’s not the one concerned. Somehow, it feels a bit like he’s telling that to himself, too.

She smiles to him, just as if she had heard that thought, and her hand lands on his as it sits on the table, close to his cup, her small fingers taking a hold of his knuckles, the warmth of her touch spreading up his arm and straight to his heart.

“Thank you so much, Professor. Students need people like you. Passionate, captivating people like you. I see them, the ones getting out of your classroom at the end of the day, and I can tell how much good you do to them. Please, don’t give up on that.”

And surprisingly, it’s easy to believe her.

Just as easy as it is to squeeze her hand back.


End file.
